Development of a New Methodology for Riser Deformed Shape Prediction/Monitoring

Author(s):  
Junho Choi ◽  
Joseph Moo-Hyun Kim

Ocean environmental conditions, such as waves, winds, and currents, are getting harsher due to climate change. This means that oil and gas production platforms in the ocean may experience unexpectedly large environmental loads bigger than previous design loads. Also, many platforms are reaching the end of their design lives. Ensuring riser integrity is one of the most important issues for platform safety and service-life extension. Currently, monitoring sensors are deployed on risers, and structural evaluation methods are utilized to examine riser integrity. However, there are some limitations to the structural evaluation methods. Furthermore, platform operators continue to seek for more direct and cost-effective riser monitoring method due to the low price of oil. In this study, the MultiSensor Fusion (MSF) system is proposed to surmount technical and economic obstacles in real-time riser-monitoring technology. The MSF system is validated for TLP (tension-leg platform) risers by using numerical sensors and numerical-simulation tools.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nere’ Joseph Mabile ◽  
Alessandro Vagata

Abstract Integrity management is an ongoing lifecycle process for ensuring safe operation and fitness for service of offshore oil and gas production systems, including risers. Risers offer a means of transporting fluids between subsea wells and the host platform crossing the splash zone that is probably the most critical region for corrosion and exposure to external damages. Furthermore, with their proximity to the personnel on the platform and to the topside equipment, risers are considered safety critical, and are therefore, subject to planned inspections followed by an engineering assessment of the findings. This paper discusses the motivation and business driver for developing and implementing a new and cost effective risers’ inspection methodology in the splash zone based on innovative robotic platforms. The technical features and the capabilities of the robot are outlined. Traditionally, risers’ inspections are carried out by rope access technicians and divers or ROV below the water line using conventional technologies as spot ultrasonic thickness measurements, traditional radiography and visual assessment. This type of inspection is based on a first visual assessment followed by NDE testing only if some finding is spotted. Internal defects or defect under coating, e.g. splashtron, can be easily overlooked, compromising the entire assessment process. Additionally such activities are often limited by accessibility, weather, and Personnel On-Board (POB) accommodations, but primarily they involve risks to inspector's safety. Backbone of the presented methodology is the use of a robotic crawler that has the key advantage to inspect autonomously the risers, navigating over obstacles like clamps and supports. The robot can carry a variety of payloads for visual inspections, surface profiling, and NDE examinations with the ability to scan large surfaces with or without coating and detect internal and external defects. It can operate in the topside, splash zone and subsea sections of the riser. The inspection data are processed in real time for an immediate assessment of the integrity of the asset. Examples are presented and comparison is made between traditional inspection methodologies and robotic autonomous methodologies to demonstrate the improvement of inspection effectiveness and efficiency. The paper also discusses the potential areas of future development, which include Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms to further automatize the process and methodologies of risers’ inspection and data analysis.


2010 ◽  
Vol 62 (10) ◽  
pp. 2372-2380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angéla Szép ◽  
Robert Kohlheb

Large amounts of produced water are generated during oil and gas production. Produced water, as it is known in the oil industry, is briny fluid trapped in the rock of oil reservoirs. The objective of this study was to test produced waters from a Montana USA oilfield using a mobile station to design a plant to cost efficiently treat the produced water for agricultural irrigation. We used combined physical and chemical treatment of produced water in order to comply with reuse and discharge limits. This mobile station consists of three stages: pretreatments, membrane filtration and post treatment. Two spiral-wound membrane units were employed and the rejections of various constituents were examined. The performance of two membranes, 20 kDa weight cut-off (MWCO) ultrafiltration and a polyamide-composite reverse osmosis membrane was investigated. The mobile station effectively decreased conductivity by 98%, COD by 100% and the SAR by 2.15 mgeqv0.5 in the produced water tested in this study. Cost analysis showed that the treatment cost of produced water is less expensive than to dispose of it by injection and this treated water may be of great value in water-poor regions. We can conclude that the mobile station provided a viable and cost-effective result to beneficial use of produced water.


Author(s):  
Zhimin Tan ◽  
Cobie Loper ◽  
Yucheng Hou ◽  
Terry Sheldrake

Unbonded flexible pipe has been a proven technology for riser solutions in offshore oil and gas production since the 1970s with over 2000 risers installed. The operating envelope for flexible riser configurations has continually expanded to meet the challenges of both shallow and deep water applications [1]. This paper presents recent innovations in technology for flexible riser solutions to enable oil and gas development in water depths as low as 20m with required system reliability as well as cost effectiveness. For shallow water applications, the traditional technology is the wave or S configuration. S configurations require a structure such as a mid-water buoyancy arch (MWA) to support the riser configuration, which increases the cost of both fabrication and installation. The wave configuration with distributed buoyancy is a more cost-effective approach in terms of installation. The disadvantage of this solution is that the riser could either float to the water surface or sink to the seabed when its content density varies or the floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) deviates from its nominal mooring position during field production. A new modified wave configuration, referred to as the Weight Added Wave (WAW) configuration (Patent pending) is presented, which enjoys the low installation cost of the wave configuration and performance reliability of the S riser configuration. The WAW configuration has been applied to two FPSO shallow water field developments and the results are presented herein to confirm the solution for real life applications.


Inventions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tahani Aldhafeeri ◽  
Manh-Kien Tran ◽  
Reid Vrolyk ◽  
Michael Pope ◽  
Michael Fowler

Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is a significant contributor to global warming and climate change. It is a harmful greenhouse gas with an impact 28 times greater than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period. Preventing methane leakage from transmission pipelines and other oil and gas production activities is a possible solution to reduce methane emissions. In order to detect and resolve methane leaks, reliable and cost-effective sensors need to be researched and developed. This paper provides a comprehensive review of different types of methane detection sensors, including optical sensors, calorimetric sensors, pyroelectric sensors, semiconducting oxide sensors, and electrochemical sensors. The discussed material includes the definitions, mechanisms and recent developments of these sensors. A comparison between different methods, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of each, is also presented to help address future research needs.


Author(s):  
Nagan Srinivasan

This paper is about technology of the Tension Leg Platform (TLP) for use in ultra deepwater to support dry-tree in oil and gas production. New TLP concept for ultra deepwater development is introduced in this paper. A technically feasible and cost-effective artificial sea-bed is used to ease the tendon design practical at such deep water in harsh environment. The truss-pontoon is utilized to reduce the vertical and horizontal wave loadings. A simple and slim hull easy to design, fabricate, transport and install is obtained. Installation method is illustrated. Optional riser-support tower is proposed to make production risers feasible in 8000 ft of water depth with no riser pre-tension to the hull and with no vortex induced vibration problems. The paper enhances the TLP capability in deepwater.


Author(s):  
Hilman Salleh

FPSOs have been a popular choice for deep water oil and gas production with many installations worldwide. Many of these floating production systems were tanker conversions and they are now approaching their mid-life or end of life hence, facing ageing issues relating to asset integrity. Concurrently, there are also requirements for these floating production systems to operate to operate beyond the design life. As most of this maintenance and refurbishment work is to be done while on station, there needs to be a structured process to ensure that all key areas of concerns are reviewed. This paper outlines the strategy available and addresses the issues and possible solutions to manage the life extension and ageing of FPSOs.


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